Commenting on the Kremlin’s September 5 decision to register the Levada Center as a “foreign agent,” director Lev Gudkov told RFE/RL, "I think we are talking about the beginning of a new phase of political reactionism, the return of totalitarianism, and the significant strengthening of the hard-line bloc, with its KGB ideology from Soviet times.”

Levada Centre Director Lev Gudkov told RFE/RL he will appeal the Kremlin’s decision designating the polling group a “foreign agent,” but fears he will lose and the organization could be closed. Gudkov attributed the decision to a recent survey showing declining public confidence in Russian President Vladimir Putin and the United Russia party. (In Russian)

An open letter criticizing U.S. Green Party presidential candidate Party Jill Stein has put the spotlight on some of Stein’s more controversial statements, as well as the increasing repression of Russian environmentalists.

Noted Crimean Tatar activist Ilmi Umerov, the former deputy chairman of the Crimean Tatars' self-governing body, the Mejlis, has been released from a psychiatric hospital in Russia-annexed Crimea after being forcibly confined to the facility last month.

Ahead of parliamentary elections on October 8, Georgian billionaire and former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili has begun to campaign on behalf of the Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party he founded in 2011.

International media groups have called on Russian authorities to drop charges against Crimean journalist and RFE/RL contributor Mykola Semena and allow him to leave the peninsula to receive medical care.

In an account of her former job as a blogger paid by the Kremlin to generate pro-government content on the internet, Olga Maltseva told RFE/RL, “I was writing 12 posts daily on political topics, mostly about Ukraine, presenting opinions about the country from the perspective that was required.” (Over 40k views on Russian Service website)